Summary

The wave of unrest of the late 1960s and early 1970s in
advanced industrial societies provided the impetus for this
cross-national study of conventional and unconventional forms of
political participation. This is an integrated dataset of national
sample surveys that were conducted via personal interview during
1973-1976 in eight nations: Great Britain, Germany, Netherlands,
Austria, United States, Italy, Switzerland, and Finland. Part 1
contains data gathered in a cross-section sample from 12,588
respondents 16 years of age and over. Part 2 contains data gathered
from 1,635 parent-child pairs (with the child being 16-20 years of
age) who were part of the first sample and who were further
interviewed. The surveys focused on various forms and combinations of
political activity ranging from voting to protest actions, and on
individual propensities to perform these activities. Among the factors
explored in the surveys as contributors to those political activities
are personal satisfaction and deprivation, interest in politics,
perception of over- and underprivileged groups, left-wing/right-wing
self-placement, political attitudes and values,
materialist/post-materialist standards, voting behavior, conventional
political participation, subjective social class, system
responsiveness, political efficacy, attitudes toward young people,
ideological sophistication, and satisfaction with government's
political, social, and economic policies. Demographic data collected
from respondents include age, sex, ethnic origin, number of siblings,
father's occupation, family's wealth when young, parents' political
preference and education, respondent's religious activity, marital
status, number of children, educational level, employment status,
organizational membership, current occupation, union membership, and
personal, family, and desired income.

Citation

Barnes, Samuel H., and Kaase, Max. Political Action: An Eight Nation Study, 1973-1976. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-04-05. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07777.v1

Geographic Coverage

Time Period(s)

1973 -- 1976

Date of Collection

1973 -- 1976

Data Collection Notes

(1) These data were processed by the Zentralarchiv
fuer empirische Sozialforschung at the University of Cologne in
cooperation with ICPSR on the basis of eight surveys carried out
independently. Although a common set of questions had been agreed upon
by the principal investigators, the eight questionnaires showed a
considerable amount of diversity with respect to sequence of questions
and coding. Therefore, prior to any data processing, a "common core"
of the eight surveys was defined by including any question asked in at
least three of the eight surveys, making an "integrated" dataset. (2)
More detailed technical descriptions (than provided by this dataset's
codebook) of sampling procedures, interviewer characteristics, and
comparisons of the sample estimate with known population
characteristics have been deposited with the Zentralarchiv.

Sample

National multistage probability samples were used to
select a valid cross-section of the population 16 years of age and
over in each of the eight countries making up the study's universe. In
addition to the cross-section sample, interviews were carried out to
provide information on parent-child pairs. In sample households that
contained at least one 16- to 20-year-old member, in addition to the
respondent selected by the usual household listing selection
procedure, a supplementary interview was conducted with the respective
other member of the pair.

Universe

Persons aged 16 and over in Great Britain, Germany,
Netherlands, Austria, United States, Italy, Switzerland, and Finland.